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Father Images, Emptiness, and Father Mirroring in Father Absent Men

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Father Images, Emptiness, and Father Mirroring in Father Absent Men Smith ScholarWorks Theses, Dissertations, and Projects 2015 In the space of the father : father images, emptiness, and father mirroring in father absent men Frank P. Tisano Smith College Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Tisano, Frank P., "In the space of the father : father images, emptiness, and father mirroring in father absent men" (2015). Masters Thesis, Smith College, Northampton, MA. https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/722 This Masters Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations, and Projects by an authorized administrator of Smith ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Frank P. Tisano In the space of the father: Father images, emptiness, and father mirroring in father absent men ABSTRACT This is an empirical, psychoanalytic inquiry designed to uncover what exists in the space for “father” when men grow up father absent. I interviewed 10 father absent men to find out how they conceptualized their personal representations of father and whether the conjured images played a material role in their lives. In light of the interviews, I contend that, regardless of circumstance, intrapsychic space exists for father. Building on Green (2004), I argue that father absent men have a combination of positive and negative space for father. Positive space is filled principally with directly experienced memories, and stories as recounted by others, particularly the mother, who is often a decisive figure in shaping the discourse on father. Positive space is filled with father mirroring memories, memories of tactile, mimetic experiences that serve as signposts for worldly engagement. Positive space is also filled by symbolic fathers, people and systems, who father feelings are displaced onto. Negative father space is empty. It is that which is not seen, symbolized, or mirrored by the father. Negative space is full, however, to the extent that negative space is recreated in the gaps of living, gaps particularly in arenas of fathering and loving. IN THE SPACE OF THE FATHER: FATHER IMAGES, EMPTINESS, AND FATHER MIRRORING IN FATHER ABSENT MEN A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work. Frank P. Tisano 2015 Smith College School for Social Work Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 ACKNOWELDGEMENTS To my father, mother, Kathleen, Bre, Billy, Kevin, and E.D. To lost fathers and sons searching for each other. Thanks especially to Jennifer Willett and to the participants. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 II LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................... 3 III METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 26 IV FINDINGS ............................................................................................................. 32 V DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................... 66 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 84 APPENDICES Appendix A: HSR Approval Letter ............................................................................. 90 Appendix B: Consent Form ........................................................................................ 91 iii CHAPTER I Introduction This thesis began in earnest in the spring of 2014 when I approached a distinguished clinician with a question about a clinical case. I suspected that my patient’s experience growing up father absent was playing a decisive role in an ongoing relational dilemma. I wondered how I could work through feelings concerning the absence, and in doing so, help resolve the dilemma. To the best of my recollection, this is what I was told: searching for meaning in absence is a fool’s errand because memory hooks onto sensory experiences. What is absent is not sensed, and therefore not remembered, and so there is nothing to work through. Although this clinician’s expertise was beyond dispute, I was unconvinced. Feeling slightly audacious, I resolved to find out more about the nature of absence. At the same time, I was combing through the history of the psychoanalytic movement, which proved bountiful beyond measure, but also generally presupposed an available father in its theoretical formulations. I suspected that father absent men would have thoughts and observations about their experience, and about their fathers. I imagined that there would be something in the space of the father for these men, but I knew not what. I also suspected that whatever was found in this space would have a bearing on the course and tempo of these men’s lives. 10 very generous men shared their stories, and helped me weave together some observations about how, and with what, men fill the space for father when they grow up father absent. Andre Green wrote, “From time to time, the analyst, like the archaeologist, finds one tooth, one mandible, and reconstructs a whole personality” (1998, p. 124). What follows will scarcely be a whole personality, but with luck, it will be a tooth or a mandible. 1 In Chapter II, I offer a psychoanalytic history of the father. I explore some of the major ideas about the functions of the father as he influences the psychic development of a son. Principally, this is an exploration of the Oedipus complex in its various configurations and applications, especially with respect to non-traditional family structures. In Chapter III, I delineate my methodology. I explain how I identified participants, how I planned and conducted interviews, how I recorded the interviews, and how I analyzed and formulated ideas based on what the participants shared. Chapter IV illustrates the main themes that emerged from the participants. I am, as the researcher always is, in the authoritative position of selecting a few of many possible stories to tell about father image. That said, with the exception of a few minor changes to preserve confidentiality, the claims I make, hinge on the powerful and polyphonic voices of the participants. What I found was entirely unexpected. I set out to learn about fathers and I ended up with conclusions about mothers. I set out to discover unexamined presences and I came to conclusions about unexplored emptiness. So much revealed itself in the space for father, both of the actual father and other symbolic fathers that I am left wondering if the term “absent father” might, itself, conceal more than it elucidates. Chapter V offers a conceptual bridge between the psychoanalytic literature and my findings. 2 Chapter II Literature review Sigmund Freud revealed psychoanalysis to the world and in so doing, Freud forever changed the way people would see themselves, their families, and their societies. Freud wrote expansively about fathers and, not incidentally, his own father. Freud situated the “father complex” at heart of human neuroses, the origin of society and civilization, and the formation of monotheistic religion (Freud, 1909/1955; Freud, 1913/1955; Freud, 1927/1961). In the years after Freud’s death in 1939, psychoanalysts have elaborated on Freud’s thoughts on fathers, building especially on the ambivalent feelings boys have for their father, feelings which have their origin in the Oedipus complex. To this day, psychoanalytic communities debate the question of universality of the Oedipus complex and its role in the analytic project. As a brief disclaimer, in the forthcoming discussion of Freud’s texts on father, and the subsequent psychoanalytic discourse on father, one might hear Freud’s association between father and power, and bristle at its phallocentrism. Many are inclined to dismiss Freud on these grounds, but I contend that to do so is to misread Freud and to turn a blind eye to the world as it is. Freud was writing about reality, however stark and brutal. Not to see the world in all its glory and all its unpleasantness, is to live blind. Freud uncovered previously hidden societal injunctions and gender classifications, some of which, I argue, still hold in contemporary society. Freud’s intellectual independence made him radical, unpopular, and most of all, indispensable. In the pages that follow, I will refer to psychoanalytic language that could be read as immoderately adherent to the gender binary. Suffice it to say, the intent of this thesis is decidedly not to reinforce a biological imperative about what boys and fathers are, and inevitably will be, only to narrowly and faithfully represent the experience of 10 male participants. As 3 Freud advises the student of scientific inquiry, “It is simply a fact that the truth…admits of no compromises or limitations, that research regards every sphere of human activity as belonging to it and that it must be relentlessly critical if any other power tries to take over any part of it” (Freud, 1933/1964, p. 160). Since everything psychoanalytic begins with Freud, this project must first take account for Freud’s contributions to the arena
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